me by its testimony, the powerful pleading, on this point, of a recent writer. Having spoken strongly, as I would do, of a master's or a mistress's responsibilities, he adds:-"This may seem to some of you, fellow-Christians, overdrawn and constrained. The language of excitement and prejudice. You would not think so had you been God's minister for more than twenty years, and had you knelt by the sick and dying beds of as many servants as I have done. I have fresh before me, and I trust that I shall never forget, the death-bed of one woman of middle age. She was dying in utter ignorance of God, in utter ignorance of His blessed Son Jesus Christ. She had no hope, no ground of hope, and she desired none-her refuge was her ignorance. When pressed with the holiness and justice of God, with the purity of heaven and its inmates, with the guilt of a rejected Saviour, and a forfeited atonement, she carried all to the charge of her mistress... She had never been to church. She said she was not allowed to go. It is quite enough that she had never been. The dying sinner felt and acknowledged where alone lay the responsibility. She clutched, as it were, her mistress with the strong arm of her dying despair, and sought to throw her as a shield between herself and the judgment of God. In vain! Whatever

Had

the guilt of the tempter, the temptation had been yielded to. Had there been the desire to know God, God would have provided the means. there been the real desire to know God in his own house, no earthly wages would have kept her from him. She died and left no hope behind."

grace, but

2nd. As masters and mistresses we should look upon our domestics as fellow brethren and fellow sisters in the Lord; and, as such, be most anxiously desirous that they may enjoy to the full extent with ourselves, not only the means of the hope of glory. Do not mistake me. I am no visionary. I have no wild thoughts; and will speak no enthusiastic rhapsody about universal equality. In one sense there never will be equality on earth. God's economy, in the arrangement of his creatures as dependant one on another, is against it. There is nothing hard, nothing grievous to be borne, in wholesome subjection. We have all superiors, and as Christian people we cheerfully allow their superiority, nay, the necessity of it. Servants are not slaves. There is nothing degrading in their position, if it be honestly filled. Their service is a duty, not a drudgery, which they are to discharge as unto the Lord. I do not therefore speak of present equality. It never has been, it never will be, it never can

be, here. But as Christians, as bending with us before the throne of grace, whether in family devotion, or in the public ordinances of the Church, there our servants kneel with us on the same platform before God. The One Lord our Father and their Father. The One Saviour our Redeemer and their Redeemer. The One Spirit our Comforter and their Comforter. The one Heaven our longed-for home and their home. Oh! how lovely is this view of Christianity! Bringing a whole household together. Linking in the same heavenly and eternal interests the highest and the lowest. Closely uniting them, not only by relative duties, as employers and employed, but as having the same hopes in sorrow, and the same prospects after death. Surely that Lord, "of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named," looks down with especial favor on that pious household, where the master, in the fear of God, strives that every member of his house shall serve the Lord; and where the mistress is actuated with the feeling in reference to her handmaidens-"She that leads a godly life she shall be my servant;" and where the strong desire and the expressed language of the servant to her mistress is-"I will live with thee, for God is with thee!" Happy Patriarchal days! Would that some glimpse of them were ever

before our eyes! When the master felt that his most sacred interests were one with his servants, and the servants that their deepest interests were one with their masters!

3rd. As masters and mistresses we should "give unto our servants that which is just and equal; knowing that we also have a Master in Heaven." Do we not tremble when we feel, indeed, that God is angry with us? Do we not acknowledge that if he were extreme to mark what we do amiss, we could not stand in his sight? Let us then learn consideration and forbearance. Instead of angry words, let us use gentle remonstrance. Instead of threatenings, let us try what words of kindness will effect. Instead of making a servant's condition hard and grievous, and dealing out to her a mere pittance with scanty hand, let us show that we can be kind and generous. That we would give what is just and equal. That as they strive in our service so we would strive for their comfort. Let us endeavour to make them attached to us, and faithful to us, by sympathizing in their troubles-by directing them with our advice-by awakening in them, by God's blessing, a desire to seek God with us, and to adorn their Saviour's doctrine in all things. Uniform kindness and conciliation will do much. Before these, many a stubborn nature is broken,

and many a morose disposition corrected. And in this way you exert, in fact, a more powerful influence and control, than by severity and the most urgent and harsh-dealing overbearance you can ever effect. We have a Master in heaven! Let us do to others, as we would should be done to us. And if we need forgiveness, let us show forgiveness. If we need forbearance, let us show forbearance. If we need encouragement, let us show encouragement. And inasmuch as we find that "in many things we offend all," and that "when we have done all we are unprofitable servants," let us not expect that those who have less advantages than ourselves can be perfect in all things, nor that with all their care and watchfulness they can in every season be unblameable in our sight.

4th. It is our duty, as masters and mistresses, to take an interest in our servants' spiritual advancement. Onesimus was a slave. When he appeared before the Apostle at Rome, he was a deserter, with nothing to recommend him, dejected and wayworn. He could have no means of gaining the Apostle's good-wishes, save that he was in misery and without hope in the world. Yet the Apostle took the liveliest concern in teaching him. He saw beneath his squalid exterior, a soul capable of the most glorious destinies, and needing to be